Transporting heroin

To discover heroin stashed aboard one PIA plane may be regarded as a tragedy; to find drugs aboard two more planes looks more than institutional carelessness. On Monday, at least 20 kilograms of heroin were seized from PIA flight PK-785 from Islamabad to London following a search operation because of which the flight was delayed for several hours. What is disturbing is that PIA aircraft are consistently being used to transport heroin and other illegal drugs across borders. A few weeks earlier at least 15 kilograms of heroin were seized from a PIA flight at Karachi airport. The heroin was recovered by chance from an aircraft which was undergoing overhaul at a hanger at the Karachi Airport. More recently, British authorities confirmed that heroin was recovered from a PIA flight at Heathrow airport. The crew was detained but no arrests were made.

All these discoveries point to the collusion of airline staff in this nefarious practice. Heroin is being hidden in different cavities of the aircraft by staff at this end and then recovered on the other end possibly by other members of PIA’s ground operation staff. What is also clear is that the practice has been going on for some time now, bringing a bad name to both the airline as well as the country.

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Aviation Division Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan Abbasi who oversees the operations of the national airline had commented at a press conference last week that the drug bust on board the PIA aircraft in London was a regrettable incident and a matter of Pakistan’s dignity. And yet in the same breath, he said, that the national flag carrier had been facing such cases in the past too but exemplary punishment was not given to the culprits. This suggests a lax attitude on the part of our authorities to tackle the matter. Drug smuggling is a serious offence and the relevant authorities need to punish all those responsible.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2017.

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